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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Towns of Iorden: a map commission

This post is Part 4 of a series about the Realms of Iorden, a map commission for the fantasy podcast TOAFN. Start with Part 1 here.

This and other map commissions are gathered in my Commissions Portfolio for you to explore. Click around, get familiar with the process, and email me at maps@DNFrost.com to talk about your own map!

Well into our project from Part 1 of this series, I worked with TOAFN creators Zach Glass and Christian Madera to finish off their map by adding the towns and rivers of Iorden. I placed all the towns using stamps that best matched their old map of Iorden. Then I labeled everything given a name.

Zach and Christian raised some questions about the black cacti from their previous render, and I revisited the cacti after placing all the towns. I was hoping the black town symbols would balance out the black cacti, but the effect didn't pull through. So these larger cacti are gray instead of black, and the faint green behind them makes the cacti seem greenish. Genius!

In comparison, the same cacti are clearly gray in the uncolored version of the map.

I traced Iorden's many rivers and lakes, differentiated the large and small rivers, and drew intricate river deltas.

Also, Zach and Christian had confessed that they rather liked the islands I mistakenly added to their first render.

I sculpted their coastlines back in, carving more natural shapes this time around. After changing the islands, I updated the map colors to reflect the new lands and shallows, and I sent the TOAFN team a render for approval.